RINGTOWN - Lights were shining bright Saturday night during the Christmas extravaganza at Mrs. Seresky's Christmas Collection.
The event, hosted by Main Street Ringtown Inc., was held from 4 to 8 p.m. at Barbara Seresky's home, 105 S. Race St., Ringtown.
It was a chance for children to meet Santa and Mrs. Claus and to see the collection that included a 12-foot Christmas tree with 4,535 ornaments and 26 sets of lights.
Seresky said that the artificial tree took about three to four weeks to decorate and she decorates it layer by layer.
She also said she had a late start decorating this year since she just bought a pizza shop, Mama B's Pizzeria, Ringtown.
"It's a work of love and there's a lot of ornaments that people have given me over the years and they all go back on," she said. "It stays up until about February."
Seresky said that the week before Christmas, her family has a gathering, which 38 people attended last year, and the tree is one thing they always come for.
The rest of the collection in the house included trains, a collection of Santas, 90 animated dolls and four village displays with more than 300 buildings.
There are also numerous other decorations throughout the house.
"Every year my husband would buy me houses because I always wanted a village," Seresky said.
Further telling how Christmas is a special holiday to her, Seresky said her husband passed away five years ago from lung cancer and the year he died, she found a wrapped Christmas present that he had bought and hidden since he said he wasn't going to make it until Christmas.
"It was a Christmas music box," Seresky said. "Even the year he passed away, he still bought me something for Christmas."
In the basement near the villages, Eva Williams, Seresky's daughter who lives in Connecticut, also said how the collection began by her father purchasing houses for her mother every year.
"Years ago we had to put this all up every year," Williams said. "She would start in the middle of October. This is her dream house. This is what she always wanted, a house where it could stay up all year."
In addition to the decorations inside, there were also numerous decorations outdoors and refreshments.
